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IR35 work - endlessly sent "temporary employee" roles over classic contracts

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    IR35 work - endlessly sent "temporary employee" roles over classic contracts

    I've been out of the recruiter game for quite a while as I've been lucky enough to secure contracts directly through word of mouth etc. However...

    I've been speaking to a bunch of recruiters today and all the gig specs they send me (I'm a frontend web dev) are basically just large companies building up temporary teams of "contractors" (with a few permies) to work on large "digital regeneration" projects. Asides from the skill requirements, the specs all talk of stuff like mentoring juniors, helping with appraisals, participating in, and I quote, "learning dojos", assisting with recruitment, etc.

    Do people just take these contracts and work through a brolly/declare themselves caught? Or is your standard contractor in denial/ignorance? I just don't understand how these sort of gigs exist - it's the worst of both worlds (no benefits, no security) unless the rates are sky high (which they're not).

    Thoughts?

    #2
    Is this something new? I've not seen anything like this at all and it's hardly ever mentioned on here. Your experience appears to completely different the norm. Are you sure you haven't applied for the same gig through different recruiters or you are over egging the situation?

    I've had a quick shufti on jobserve and don't see any of that mentioned in anything I looked at?

    Are you actually apply for gigs through them or are they sending you general specs to keep you interested? You are sure there are gigs behind these spec?

    Something doesn't sound right here.
    Last edited by northernladuk; 30 July 2018, 15:20.
    'CUK forum personality of 2011 - Winner - Yes really!!!!

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      #3
      I'm not sure if I'm over egging the situation. Possibly? My experience the last few years has been supplying my own contract and specifying working conditions to my end clients so perhaps I have a warped view of what is considered normal in terms of your standard recruiter/end client gigs with regards to IR35.

      I've spoken to quite a few recruiters this morning after uploading my CV to CWJobs and every spec I've been sent has had similar red flags for me. They're all 6+ month roles working on some (or many) undefined deliverables within a bunch of new teams the end client is apparently putting together. Keywords I've seen are indeed things like "mentoring juniors", "appraisals", "leading learning sessions" and so on.

      It all just smells of employee to me. Is this the new norm? I get the impression the companies want a bunch of disposable permies (who act like permies) rather than specifically skilled contractors.

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        #4
        Interesting that this thread, from the other side of the fence, covers much the same ground and seems to support what you're saying...
        Blog? What blog...?

        Comment


          #5
          These sorts of roles don't necessarily have to be "inside", it depends how you approach them. For instance, I have no problem agreeing to help mentor junior perm developers whilst working on a team - it's something I have experience doing and therefore sell it as part of my overall service. In fact IMO it reinforces the fact that I bring a level of experience and knowledge to the team that they don't have in-house (usually because they have very few senior devs) and by leaving a gig having helped improve their junior devs I'm delivering extra value to the client.

          You need to work at keeping a professional separation from you and typical employee stuff but team supplementation roles can still be outside as long as you carefully define the scope of what you're working on and maintain control over the "how" (the "what" will always be controlled by the client to a degree, especially on an agile project). Working mostly remote can also help with this (but I'm pretty strict about remote working only anyway).

          My approach is to only take on these sort of roles if I really need the work, set clear expectations of how I work up front and avoid doing them long term (6-12 months max).

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